winter bread
When chilly breezes drift through the air, the winter cook can justifiably think about filling the kitchen with the heady sweetness of a fruit-filled bread.
And when that same cold wind sweeps through, and you have a pot of soup gurgling along to a savory finish, imagine another kind of bread made from a mix of oats and grains to become just the right accompaniment.
But not just any bread.
On the lightly sweetened end of baked things, my bread of choice for the cold, sometimes unforgiving days and nights is a lightly sweetened yeast bread accented with dried fruit. Consider, for the moment, the lode of moist dried fruits that piles up on the market shelves, oftentimes neglected (poor things!), October through December. Collectively, though they speak of deep earthy flavor, dried fruits are just tossed into a random compote or savory stuffing. Yet when the fruits—especially figs, cherries, raisins, prunes, and apricots—get all caught up in a yeast dough, their essence becomes quite animated. The rambling dough for bread for dessert, bread for cheese: fruit bread is made with butter and a few eggs and looks like an irregularly plump mattress; it is a prime example of using dried fruits to their flavorful best. The chopped fruits can be added as is to the once-risen dough, or marinated in dribbles of orange liqueur for a few hours while the dough is achieving its first rise. If the fruits are treated in this manner, you could further expand the overall tone by adding a few teaspoons of the liqueur to the final, prebaking wash of melted butter and benevolent shower of turbinado or granulated sugar that caps it. This would make for a very grown-up finish.
Warm from the oven, a platter of rough and irregular tears is dessert and, without the final sugar haze, becomes a fantastic accompaniment to cheese, particularly goat or a farmhouse Cheddar, contrasting the savory with the naturally sweet fruit.
On the bread-for-soup end, I love to bake a pan of grainy rolls, the rolls’ texture made tweedy and flaky by integrating some cooked 10-grain cereal, rolled oats, a little whole wheat flour, and wheat bran in a raised yeast dough that includes honey and buttermilk. These are exceedingly plump rolls, and their sides and rounded tops meet one another when the formed second rise is complete. At once tender and robust, the dough can be hand-molded into rolls to sit in tight formation and locked into square baking pans, or shaped as fold-overs and arranged—row by row—on one dramatic expanse of a rimmed sheet pan. Personally, having the orderly configuration of the rolls smartly contained in two baking pans appeals to my sense of design, with the following bonus: rolls that are arranged in pans are much more moist and satiny, and then there is that terrific textural contrast of upper crust and soft, bready sides. Irresistible.
I am always mindful of these two recipes at the first forecast of snow, when home—and specifically the kitchen—becomes the destination hideaway for this cook and her baking ingredients.
bread for dessert, bread for cheese: fruit bread
serving: one flatbread, creating about 15 randomly shaped tears of bread
ahead: best on baking day
dried fruit yeast dough
21⁄4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1⁄4 teaspoon granulated sugar
1⁄2 cup warm (105 to 110 degrees F) water
1⁄4 cup unsifted unbleached all-purpose flour
1⁄3 cup milk
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
13⁄4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
13⁄4 cups unsifted unbleached all-purpose flour blended with 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons (1 stick plus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, softened
1⁄2 cup stemmed and coarsely chopped dried figs
1⁄2 cup moist pitted and coarsely chopped prunes
1⁄3 cup golden raisins
1⁄3 cup coarsely chopped dried apricots
1⁄3 cup tart (Montmorency) dried cherries
butter and sugar finish
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (preferably clarified butter) melted and cooled to tepid
about 3 tablespoons turbinado sugar or granulated sugar (optional)
For the dough, stir together the yeast, the 1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar, and the warm water in a heatproof measuring cup. Allow the mixture to stand until swollen, 6 to 7 minutes. Turn the yeast mixture into a small mixing bowl, stir in the 1/4 cup flour, cover with a sheet of food-safe plastic wrap, and let stand at room temperature for 30 to 35 minutes, or until bubbly and expanded by at least half.
Place the milk and the 3 tablespoons granulated sugar in a small saucepan. Set over low heat to warm the milk. Remove from the heat, whisk well, and cool to tepid. Pour the milk mixture into the bowl of a heavy-duty freestanding electric mixer fitted with the flat paddle. Blend in the vanilla extract, eggs, and yeasty flour mixture. Mix on low speed until thoroughly blended. Add the 13/4 cups flour-salt blend in 3 additions, stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl after each portion is added. Beat in the butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, then beat in the remaining 1 tablespoon. Stop the machine from time to time to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat the dough on moderate speed for 4 minutes. At this point, the dough should be smooth, elastic, shiny, and somewhat moist-sticky. (If the dough seems too unmanageable, you can add up to 2 tablespoons flour, 1 teaspoon at a time.)
Scrape the dough into a bowl heavily coated with softened unsalted butter, lightly turn to coat all sides in a film of butter, make several cuts in the dough with a pair of kitchen scissors, cover tightly with a sheet of food-safe plastic wrap, and let rise at room temperature for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until doubled in bulk. Remove the sheet of plastic wrap.
Lightly compress the risen dough with a rubber spatula, cover loosely with the plastic wrap, and let stand for 10 minutes. Remove and discard the plastic wrap. Sprinkle over the dried figs, prunes, raisins, apricots, and cherries and knead lightly in the bowl until incorporated. At first the dough will reject the fruits and the fruits will break through the dough, but then it will enclose them (although pieces of fruit will stick here and there to the exposed surfaces ).
Film a heavy rimmed sheet pan with softened unsalted butter. Place the dough in the center of the pan and press into a free-form oval, clearing about 4 inches from the four side edges of the pan. Cover loosely with two sheets of food-safe plastic wrap. Let rise at room temperature for 1 hour, or until puffy and almost doubled in bulk.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F in advance of baking.
Remove and discard the sheets of plastic wrap covering the bread about 15 minutes before the bread is completely risen.
Using the finish ingredients, lightly brush the melted butter over the surface of the risen bread. Continue to let the bread finish rising, uncovered, for another 15 minutes. Just before baking, sprinkle the turbinado or granulated sugar over the surface of the bread if it is intended as a sweet (omit the sugar sprinkle if serving with cheese).
Bake the bread in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until set and a golden color on top. Cool the bread on the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Serve the bread warm, torn into free-form pieces.
notes
• to lace the dried fruits with orange liqueur, toss them with 5 teaspoons orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier or Cointreau, before you begin to put together the yeast bread; knead the fruits into the bread as described (the dough will be a little more moist) and continue with shaping and baking
bread for soup: favorite grainy pan rolls
serving: 32 rolls
ahead: best on baking day; or freeze for 3 weeks, defrost, bundle in aluminum foil, and reheat in a preheated 300 degrees F oven for 15 minutes
cooked 10-grain cereal
1⁄3 cup 10-grain cereal
11⁄2 cups water
oatmeal, whole wheat, 10-grain cereal, and bran yeast dough
41⁄2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1⁄4 teaspoon granulated sugar
1⁄4 cup warm (105 to 110 degrees F) water
1 cup “old-fashioned” rolled oats
1⁄2 cup wheat bran
1 cup boiling water
11⁄2 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons maple syrup
3 tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar
1⁄4 cup honey (preferably wildflower)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons solid shortening
1 large egg
3⁄4 teaspoon baking soda
6 cups unsifted unbleached bread flour, plus an additional 1⁄2 cup, as needed for kneading
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsifted whole wheat flour
For the cooked cereal, place the 10-grain cereal and water in a medium-size saucepan, set over moderately high heat, and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer the cereal, stirring now and again, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until just cooked through and creamy. Uncover, place on a heatproof trivet, and set aside.
For the dough, stir together the yeast, the 1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar, and the warm water in a heatproof measuring cup. Allow the mixture to stand until swollen, 6 to 7 minutes.
In the meantime, place the rolled oats and wheat bran in a medium-size heatproof mixing bowl, pour over the boiling water, stir, and let stand for 10 minutes. Stir in the cooked cereal and set aside.
Place the buttermilk, maple syrup, light brown sugar, honey, butter, and shortening in a medium-size saucepan, set over low heat, and warm until the butter and shortening melt. Remove from the heat, whisk well, scrape into a medium-size heatproof mixing bowl, and let stand for 5 to 7 minutes to cool to tepid. Stir in the cereal mixture and egg, using a wooden spoon or flat wooden paddle. Mix in the baking soda. Blend in the yeast mixture.
Whisk 3 cups of the bread flour, the salt, and whole wheat flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the yeasty, grainy mixture and stir to mix; the yeasty cereal mixture will be thick, moist, and heavy at this point. Let the mixture stand, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Stir in the remaining 3 cups bread flour, 1 cup at a time, waiting 3 minutes between additions. The final cup of bread flour needs to be incorporated by hand and the dough may not receive it all at once. Dust a work surface with a little of the additional 1⁄2 cup bread flour. Knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes, incorporating as much of the additional bread flour to make it manageable, but realize that the finished dough will still be slightly tacky to the touch. Use a pastry scraper at all times to keep the dough moving during the kneading process.
Turn the dough into a bowl heavily coated with softened unsalted butter, lightly turn to coat all sides in a film of butter, make several cuts in the dough with a pair of kitchen scissors, cover tightly with a sheet of food-safe plastic wrap, and let rise in a cozy, slightly warm spot for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until doubled in bulk.
Film the inside of two 9 by 9 by 3-inch baking pans with nonstick flour-and-oil spray.
To form the rolls, uncover the dough and discard the plastic wrap. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, but avoid compressing it. Cut the dough in half, then divide each half into quarters. Further divide each quarter portion into 4 even-size pieces. There should be 32 pieces of dough. Smooth each piece into a plump ball by rolling it on the work surface briskly under the cupped palm of your hand. Place the balls of dough in the prepared baking pans, assembling them in four rows of 4 each.
Cover each pan of rolls loosely with a sheet of food-safe plastic wrap. Let the rolls rise in a cozy place for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until quite plump and doubled in bulk. The rolls will merge as they rise.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F in advance of baking.
Remove and discard the sheets of plastic wrap covering the rolls.
Bake the rolls in the preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until set. Place the pans on cooling racks and let stand for 10 minutes. Carefully invert the rolls onto other cooling racks. Lift off each pan, then invert the rolls again to stand right side up. Serve the rolls warm or at room temperature, by pulling the sections apart at their natural seams. Store in an airtight container.
bread for soup: favorite grainy pan rolls